>>216143720
It's not the MENA (Middle Eastern & North Africa) map, it's the "islamic" belt map.
>Linguistically
Their official language, Urdu, is written in a Persian-Arabic script (Nastaʿlīq) influenced by Persian and Arabic loan words, as part of a deliberate effort to "Arabize" the Indo- aryan Hindi.
>Culturally
That region was historically ruled by a succession of Persian, Agfani and Turkic dynasties; the Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Tughlaqs, Lodis, and the Mughal Empire. Hell, even the Ummayads conquered Sindh for a while.
All of these brought the persian language, architecture, foods, clothing, etc and mixed it with the local North-western Indian subcontinental culture base.
Half of Afghanistan doesn't speak Persian..the Persians themselves don't speak Arabic. Their language was arabized by invading dynasties.